


Blind Date

by Reyemile



Series: Seeing One Another [7]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Blindness, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 11:20:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21848830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyemile/pseuds/Reyemile
Summary: Date night! Kagami is taking Marinette out for a night on the town. But when things start to go wrong, Kagami gets suspicious--as they say, "three times is enemy action."Part of the Seeing One Another series. New readers, start at the beginning, Blind Days.
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Kagami Tsurugi
Series: Seeing One Another [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1511747
Comments: 172
Kudos: 553





	1. Chapter 1

Kagami often thought of her politeness like a second suit of clothing. 

When she was with her mother, especially at public functions, she felt like she was wearing kimono and obi. Her appearance was glamourous and demure, but she was cripplingly restricted. Every movement and word had to be measured carefully, lest she fall on her face and rip open her beauteous bindings.

With Marinette, on the other hand, Kagami felt naked. This could sometimes be a good thing. It was freeing and intimate, and perhaps a precursor to actual naked time (though Kagami’s relationship schedule had that penciled in for months in the future). But it was not something Kagami felt comfortable displaying in the school cafeteria.

To that end, Kagami and Doo Ri spoke at a level of formality most analogous to a T-shirt and jeans. This was aided by the grammar of Japanese, in which Doo Ri was fluent. The language’s baked-in hierarchy made it easy to establish and communicate an appropriate level of closeness, and distance, between friends. 

Kagami was eating Doo Ri’s homemade kimchi with gusto. It was intensely spicy and sour in a way that couldn’t be bought in a jar. As the heat built up in her mouth, each bite became a greater challenge to consume. Kagami never backed down from a challenge. 

Doo Ri had taken a pair of onigiri in exchange. The rice balls were the product of Chef Mori-Thibodeaux’s kitchen, though supposedly they’d been made in accordance with an old family recipe. Kagami had no specific complaints about them except for overexposure. Nothing was so good that it could be enjoyed day after day without variation. Kagami was happy to be rid of them. 

Doo Ri herself looked similar to Kagami, slim and pretty with dark hair cut in bangs. They were dressed in similar school uniforms, as well, so the subtler differences like the extra few inches of hair at the nape of Doo Ri’s neck were washed away. Of course, any possible confusion between them would be dispelled as soon as the two stood up. As was ordinary for competitive swimmers, Doo Ri was tall, towering above Kagami by more than 20 centimeters. But seated, they were practically mirrors.

“You’re still aiming for gold?” asked Doo Ri.

“Yes. My attendance at our first Olympics is all but certain. The second in the air. The third unlikely. My eyes will be failing by then.”

“Would it be trite for me to compliment you on your bravery and tenacity?”

“Positively insipid.”

“Then I shall respectfully refrain,” Doo Ri stated with ironic solemnity. “However, it will be a pleasure to have your company the one time.” 

Kagami shrugged. “My ability to keep you company may be curtailed if I represent Japan, rather than France. The South Korean government has a long memory, and the Japanese government is hostage to its own pride.”

Doo Ri made a disgusted face. “Ugh. Politics.” 

Kagami set her chopsticks across the rim of the empty metal tin. “I have spent most of the meal speaking about myself.” 

Doo Ri’s progress on the rice ball was notably slower than Kagami’s. They were street food, meant to be gobbled up by hungry workers, but Doo Ri was too prim to risk losing rice grains to the floor. “The more you speak about yourself, the more I realize the enormity of my error. You are an exceptional individual, Kagami-kun. If you cannot fight off Hawk Moth, then no one can.”

_ Not alone. Perhaps with help…  _ But that was off-limits, it would reveal too much. “Yet the task of rebuilding our friendship falls equally on both our shoulders.”

“I have no objection, of course, but such words are surprising from the Kagami I know. You’ve become quick to declare us friends.”

The Kagami that Doo Ri knew would have been too embarrassed to show her dreamy smile in public. But today’s Kagami was in love. “I have been inspired to change the way I live my life.” 

Emoting was nice, but like all indulgences, temporary. Kagami used her chopsticks to scrape up a last sliver of pickled cabbage. She focused on the pain of the peppers until she could keep her face under control. “Love changes one’s perspective,” she said. “That said, I suffered heartbreak, and found my partner only through chance. Perhaps there is something to be said for taking time to nurse one’s wounds.”

“Surprising to hear, from one who rushed in headlong,” Doo Ri commented with her own faint smile.

“I have a time limit. And you’re deflecting.”

“I’m not,” said Doo Ri. “But if you insist, I’ll share. I have gotten over Kim. It’s been months. I am prepared to cast my net into the romantic waters again. Sadly, I suffer from a profound lack of waters to cast into. I do not possess your… shall we say, flexibility?... when it comes to my partners. And the boy of my dreams will  _ not  _ be found at this school. The admissions department of Anquetil Academy selects the male student body primarily for entitlement and boorishness, as I’m certain you’re aware.”

Kagami chuckled. “Did you know that swords and phalluses bear passing resemblance to one another?” She grabbed her chin in mock thought. “I’d never noticed myself, but the boys of this school pointed out to me on my first day here. And the day after that. And the day after that…”

Doo Ri smiled back competitively. At a sports-centered academy such as Anquetil, competitiveness was a common trait. “You may speak to me about the boys of this school after you’ve paraded in front of them in a swimsuit. I do not need to be told that my legs go ‘all the way up.’ They are my legs. I know their location.”

A bell announced the changing of classes. The Anquetil schedule was idiosyncratic with its lunch breaks, and the upperclass lycée students overlapped by a few minutes with the collège-age students--an accommodation to allow sports teammates to socialize. A particular first-year caught Kagami’s eye, approaching with a sensual swagger that sent her blonde ponytail bobbing and the eyes of her classmates goggling. 

“Your unconditional acceptance of my romantic tastes is appreciated, Doo Ri.” Kagami wanted to breach the subject carefully, but with Angelique fast approaching, time was of the essence.

“Half of my teammates are gay, and so too are the majoriy of the footballers and hockey players. I’ve already ruled out the roving wolf packs that are this school’s boys. If I eschewed the lesbians too, I would have no social circle whatsoever.”

“So it is,” said Kagami. In truth, the gossip mill of hook-ups and break-ups was uninteresting to Kagami, so she had only Doo Ri’s word. “Regardless. I value your support. A girl liking a girl says nothing about her character. She could be a very good person. Or… she could be a terrible one. Society in general encourages the worst in the male half of the population, but female predators exist as well. If boys are wolf packs, then the girls are… spiders. Lying in wait for the boys to chase you into their web.”

Doo Ri looked at Kagami as though she’d grown a second head. “What are you talking about?”

Then Angelique slid onto the bench next to her. The girl, a top-tier archer and fellow Olympic prospect, sat in close physical proximity to Doo Ri. Kagami was careful not to react. “Hey hey hey, when in France, do as the French do, am I right?” she said. “I know French is like your fourth language, which is totally awesome, but I’m feeling a little left out!”

“I was just providing Doo Ri with some relationship advice,” Kagami said, switching to French as requested. “I presume you are here to offer Doo Ri an… archery lesson?”

“Yup, you know it!” Angelique offered Kagami a salacious wink. “The offer still stands for you, too, Kagami-chan!”

“Regretfully, I must decline,” Kagami said. “Doo Ri. I have a doctors appointment and will be excused for the rest of the day. I look forward to dining with you again Monday. Until then…” Kagami bowed slightly towards Doo Ri, and reverted to Japanese. “...watch out for spiders.”

Doo Ri frowned. Then, she shifted in her seat a few inches to her left, breaking the contact between her outer thigh and Angelique’s. Kagami pushed the empty kimchi tin towards its owner and turned to return her tray. She could feel the daggers of Angelique’s stare stabbing into her back the whole way out of the cafeteria.

\------

An hour and a half later, Kagami and her mother sat in the office of Dr. Chastain. The ophthalmologist was old, with crows feet at the corners of her deep brown eyes and grey hairs streaked through her chestnut hair. In her long career, she’d certainly had all manner of obstreperous, argumentative, and threatening, patients pass through her offices. 

Tomoe Tsurugi still intimidated her.

“Now, I don’t want these numbers to create an excessively dire impression. They’re not as bad as they sound…” she said nervously.

“The results,” Tomoe said. 

The doctor gulped. “Yes, well. Most of the numbers are normal. Let’s see…” she rattled off a series of statistics about Kagami’s eyes. She didn’t know what most of them meant, but she did know how most of them had trended. And initially, none of them were worrisome. But then Dr. Chastain stopped, breathed deeply, and said “Don’t be alarmed--”

“The results!” Kagami said sharply.

The doctor sighed. “Field of vision. 151 degrees, down from the previous measure of 162 degrees.”

“You have access to my medical history from Japan, yes?” Kagami asked. “Where did I start?”

“Two years ago, right? Let’s see… 173.” Dr. Chastain said. 

Tomoe was placid, accepting the news with grace befitting her name and station. “So in the past two months, she’s lost as much vision as she had over the previous two years?”

“It’s not nearly as bad as it looks!” The doctor was in full-on panic mode now. “We still haven’t found the underlying cause of Kagami’s retinal degeneration, but the literature on similar cases suggests that the decay will be intermittent, not steady. There’s no reason at present to think this is anything but an anomaly. There’s no physical signs of retinal detachment of bleeding, and the initial blood work hasn’t shown anything that could be the culprit. We’ll have more answers soon--the complete blood labs will be done in two weeks, at which point I’d like to see Kagami again. But in my professional opinion, the most likely result is a normalization of the decay, with occasional spikes recurring into adulthood.”

Kagami, too, took this report in with serenity. “Previously, you said I had a 50% chance of total blindness by age 28, and 90% chance by age 40. I assume those numbers no longer hold?”

Dr. Chastain had given bad news before, and so she delivered the prognosis with gentle kindness. “Running your results through the best models I have, the numbers are now 50% by 23 and 90% by 30. I’m sorry, Kagami.”

“She is a Tsurugi,” Tomoe said. “She will face our curse with the same strength as her ancestors before her.”

“Mme. Tsurugi,  _ please  _ stop referring to this disease as a curse--”

The blind woman cut her off. “If there’s nothing else?” 

Dr. Chastain slumped in her seat. “Nothing else. Kagami, you have my office’s emergency number. Any visual symptoms--blurring, tunnel vision, floaters, red spots--we want to hear about them right away. Otherwise, try not to stress too much, and I’ll see you in two weeks.” 

Kagami nodded, and the two Tsurugi left the office without another word.

Once they were in the car, Kagami spoke first. “I do not regret accepting the miraculous.”

“Two years worth of degradation in your sight, from two transformations,” Tomoe said. Kagami did not correct her about the third. “I could lecture you, but the results speak for themselves. Instead, I will only remind you: your next outing as Ryuuko will be your last. Is that clear?”

Kagami nodded. “Understood, mother,” she said through gritted teeth. 

Kagami’s mother placed a hand on her daughter’s knee. “One day you will thank me for protecting you, Kagami-chan.”

Kagami picked up her mother’s hand and returned it to its owner’s lap. “No. Not if you’re truly willing to let Paris burn.” 

Tomoe didn’t respond. The electric hum of Tatsu’s motors was the background music to a slow tour of the busy streets of Paris. Kagami though that the rest of the ride would be silent, but a few minutes later, Tomoe spoke again.

“Your outing this evening. You requested a large allowance for social time with Marinette. You failed to mention that you had romantic designs on her.”

Naturally, the Tsurugi matriarch was too perceptive to have missed it. “And if I do?” Kagami asked without inflection. Her anger was tightly coiled and ready to strike.

“She is clever and accomplished. You choose well.”

“So you… approve?” Kagami asked hesitantly. 

“I want to see you happy.” Tomoe said, and Kagami believed it to be the truth. She did care for her daughter, Kagami knew in her heart. And yet, the swordmistress was set in her ways. She was convinced of her rightness. No, this was far too easy.. 

“Forgive my doubts, mother, but… what’s the catch?” 

“My responsibility is to secure your future. And the future of the Tsurugi line. A young man of noble Japanese descent, Kenji Wakatsuki, will be visiting Paris in a month for the black tie opening of the Louvre’s new Japanese exhibit. I’ve made arrangements for you and him--”

“I will not leave Marinette,” Kagami growled.

“And Kenji will not leave his Daiichi,” Tomoe replied. “That gives both of you reason to arrange a... compromise.”

Kagami’s stillborn anger flowed out of her. 

Tomoe’s suggestion was ridiculous, outdated, and offensive, but within the confines of her traditionalist views, it was by far the best option for Kagami. And it could not have been an easy one to arrange. How many prospects had she ruled out, how many youths had she investigated, to track down a boy her age who was noble, well-respected,  _ and  _ homosexual? In her own bizarre way, Tomoe was showing her love for Kagami.

“Mother,” Kagami said calmly. “Father told me stories, when I was a child.”

“When you  _ were  _ a child?” her mother retorted.

Kagami did not rise to the bait. “He told me a story of a blind noblewoman. All of her fellow nobles, all of her distant relatives, cousins and aunts and uncles, to her that she needed a wealthy, well established husband for her to live her life.”

“Kagami,” Tomoe warned.

“The blind noble, however, was in love with a low-class laborer. He was a son of drunkards, but he inherited none of their degeneracy. She fell for him, and she ignored all the rules of high society to marry him, scandal be damned. They lived, and they loved, and had a strong and beautiful daughter.”

Tomoe’s speech was strained, warring against her own emotions. “Kagami…”

“Lately, I’ve come to question whether that tale was true or just a fairy tale. Did the blind swordswoman who I idolized ever exist outside of those stories? But in the end, it doesn’t matter. She stayed with her love at all costs, and I will live up to her example and do the same. Real or fictional, hers is the example I aspire to.”

Tomoe didn’t answer. Eventually, Kagami turned her head. A lone tear hung halfway down Tomoe’s cheek. 

Sensing Kagami’s attention, Tomoe returned her hand to her daughter’s knee. This time, Kagami rested her palm on her mother’s knuckles. The rode home silently, but they stayed in familial contact the whole way.

\------

Kagami checked the concealer on her leg. As battle scars went, the welt on her upper thigh was minor, but Kagami wished Marinette hadn’t selected the black dress with the cut-out leg. Fortunately, the expensive custom blended powder matched her skin perfectly, and the thin red line was nearly invisible. 

She’d pulled no punches for her first date with her love. Her shoes had five-centimeter heels--wide ones, not even Marinette was worth suffering stilettos, but that was four centimeters more than she’d worn for anyone else in her life. Her short nails gleamed bright red. A simple silver necklace draped down her neck, supporting a teardrop-shaped river pearl at the hollow where her collarbones met. It had taken time, and money, to get all right, but it was all worth it.

The limousine, however, was proving excessive. It was sized for a party of eight, and with Kagami alone it felt cavernous. A sad, empty bucket yawned yearningly for champagne, but none would be provided to the car’s underaged occupants. The privacy screen was rolled up. Lowering it wouldn’t have reduced her loneliness. She had nothing to say to the driver, nor he to her.

The huge car pulled to a stop in front of the Tom and Sabine Boulangerie. The driver, like everything else about this date, was among the best money could buy. He somehow found a way to position his oversized vehicle at the corner such that traffic could eke past in both directions.

Her phone was tucked in a small black clutch alongside a house key, a single credit card, a government-issued ID, and an illegal collapsible combat baton. As she was readying to text her arrival, though, Tom Dupain ducked under his short doorframe and waved hello. Kagami opened the door, got out, cursed the man who had invented heels, and returned the wave from the curb. 

Tom put his head back inside the bakery. Kagami had no idea what he was saying. Knowing Marinette, it was some variant of “don’t be shy, don’t panic. I’m sure she’ll think you’re pretty.” 

He was right, of course. Kagami was in love, and she’d think Marinette was beautiful if she came out wearing a burlap sack.

Tom went back inside, and she saw his silhouette making pleading motions with his hands. He knelt to give a hug, and then he returned to the street with an intensely shy Marinette under his arms.

Kagami’s breath halted. She knew Marinette would look beautiful, of course. She hadn’t expected was to see Marinette looking  _ handsome.  _

Marinette was dressed in a suit. A custom made suit, a dark velvety red with bright lining on the lapels that matched the Ladybug-red shirt underneath. Rolled cuffs, artful tearing at the knees of the slacks, and an undone bowtie dangling loose gave the whole suit a casual air, but the expert tailoring around the hips, waist, and chest made it clear to a trained eye that this outfit was a labor of love. However, the true finishing touch, the detail that gave Marinette a gorgeous, androgynous mystique, was her hair--pulled back in a single ponytail by a simple hairband. 

Kagami had to stare into Marinette’s bluebell eyes to convince herself that it was really her.

Tom pushed his daughter forward gently, and she staggered towards Kagami a few steps at a time. Once they were close, Marinette stammered, “I… I hope you… I hope you like--”

“It’s stunning,” Kagami said breathlessly. Truthfully. 

“Oh. Oh, thank goodness.” Marinette practically collapsed, leaning on her father for support. 

“Like I said, Marinette, she’ll love it,” said Tom. He smiled behind his mustache. “Now, the two of you have places to be. Kagami, I want her home by eleven. And Marinette?”

Marinette finally met Kagami’s eyes. She stepped forward, unblinking, and put her hands on Kagami’s hips. Kagami did the same. “Yes, Papa?” she said without looking at him.

“I’ve loved you from the day we had you, Marinette. You’re perfect, so it’s never bothered me that a father of a single girl misses out on a few parts of parenting. But today… I get to tell you something I thought I’d never have a chance to say, and it brings me great joy.”

“Papa?” Marinette said, finally looking back at him.

“Have fun, son,” he said with a jocular grin and a meaty slap on Marinette’s back. “But don’t you dare get her pregnant!”

“ _ Papa _ !” Marinette shrieked. Kagami tittered in amusement. “What are you--how could you--I’m just wearing a suit, that doesn’t mean--ARGH!” And with that, she dragged Kagami by the wrist into the limousine, slamming the door on her chortling father.

Once steam was no longer coming out of Marinette’s ears, Kagami asked, “I  _ am _ curious about your choice of apparel?”

“Hold that thought.” Marinette opened her jacket pocket with two fingers. “Tikki, thanks for agreeing to give us some privacy.”

“Of course, Marinette! Call me if you need me!” the Kwami answered. Marinette took off her earrings, making Tikki dissolve into a blur of red. Marinette tossed the earrings back into the pocket and zipped it securely shut. 

“Where were we?” asked Marinette.

“Your suit.”

“Right, right. The suit. The truth is… I’m a bad designer.” Marinette quickly followed the bombshell up with “Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m pretty good and need to be less hard on myself. It’s more that I’m a… limited designer. Or at least, I have a big gap in my design portfolio.”

Kagami quirked an eyebrow. “Explain?” 

“I’m getting there! But first, I need to tell you something. Kagami, you’re…” Marinette closed her eyes. “You can do this, just say it, she loves you, she should know.”

When she opened her eyes again, they were hungry _.  _ “Kagami, you’re  _ hot.  _ Seeing you in that dress makes me want to skip dinner and spend the whole date kissing..”

Kagami was unused to flushing so brightly. _Does_ _Marinette feel this way on a daily basis? That explains so very much,_ she thought. 

Marinette kindly ignored Kagami’s reaction, likely because she could barely keep a lid on her own blush. “Now that I’ve said it, you should know that I don’t have any problem with the idea of two girls loving each other. Hugging each other. Kissing each other. My brain, heart, and soul are united on that front. The problem I’m having is 100% aesthetic.”

She grabbed for pigtails that didn’t exist, and ended up scratching her nape. “I cannot, for the life of me, design a pair of skirts! Everything I’ve ever designed has been guys and girls. Princes and princesses. Or I guess, if the models are women...”

“Butch and femme?” Kagami offered. 

Marinette nodded. “Yeah, that. I don’t know how to break out of that box. Two girls kissing? Fine. Two dresses kissing? Disaster! I sketch a skirt and my pencil just automatically starts with shirt and slacks for the partner. I crumpled up an entire notebook trying to design a femme/femme pattern that worked. I know it can be done, I’ve seen it, but me, personally? Complete designer’s block.”

“And after giving up, you decided that you would be the butch one?” Kagami asked curiously.

Marinette nodded decisively. “My first instinct was that it should be you, but then I realized that’s totally unfair. Sure, you’re the badass of the two of us--”

“You’re  _ Ladybug. _ ”

“Magic doesn’t count! You’re a warrior, Kagami, and I’m just a klutz. But... you’re still incredibly feminine. You shouldn’t have to forsake your girlishness just because you are good with a sword.”

Funny how, showered with compliments, ‘warrior’ was the word that made Kagami’s heart glow. She savored the attention for a few moments before getting back to business. “But are  _ you  _ comfortable like this, Marinette?” She rubbed the skin of Marinette’s knee through the tiny rip. “Although you talk of my girlishness,  _ you _ are the one whose room is  _ pink. _ ”

Marinette pushed her knee into Kagami’s hand. “This is fun, actually. Different. But definitely not something I want to be permanent. It made sense for me to dress like this for tonight, but in the future, I kinda hope we can, I dunno… take turns?”

Kagami visualized the two of them as they were, side by side, then swapped their costumes in her mind. She nodded. “I would look dashing in a tuxedo, I think.”

“No, no, no, I didn’t mean it like that!”

Kagami asked, at a loss. Marinette had gone from content to horrified in a split-second, and Kagami was beginning to feel horrified herself, wondering how she’d put her foot in her mouth so badly mere minutes into their date. “Mean it… like what?” 

“Kagami.” Marinette grabbed at her hands and held them in front of her. “You’ve driven your whole life towards seeing yourself in a wedding dress. I would  _ never  _ take that from you. When you walk down the aisle, it will be  _ your  _ turn, no matter what.”

Kagami fluttered her eyelashes and smiled as big as she could ever remember smiling. “I meant,” she explained, “that I would look dashing in a tuxedo at a black tie art exhibition next month.” Marinette’s eyes shot open, and somehow, Kagami’s cheeks found room to make her smile even bigger. Unable to resist the temptation, Kagami added, “But it pleases me to no end, that you’re already planning our wedding.”

Marinette’s eyes were so wide they almost took up her whole face. She looked left, then right, but the closed limousine cabin had no avenues of escape. For lack of better options, she grabbed the empty champagne bucket and dropped it over her head.

Once, Kagami would have turned up her nose at this behavior as a sign of weakness and disorder. But Kagami had seen undeniable red spotted proof that Marinette was both strong and disciplined. Unburdened by preconceptions, she could now appreciate Marinette’s adorable absurdity in all its glory. She burst into the full-bellied laughter none but Marinette could draw from her, saying, “Marinette, I’m teasing! Take that off. You look ridiculous.”

“Marinette isn’t here right now,” she said from under the bucket. Her petulance echoed metalicly. “Please leave a message after the beep.”

Kagami slid out of her seat, clutching her sides with laughter, utterly in love, and absolutely certain that tonight would be perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marinette's outfit is a palette-swap of Catra's suit from the ballroom episode. She is the best-dressed cartoon lesbian in history and I'll fight you if you disagree.


	2. Chapter 2

The drive to the restaurant was long, so Kagami had plenty of time to talk Marinette out of her security bucket. The drive since then had been casual, as the two of them grew accustomed to their made-up appearances. 

They’d engaged in small talk, which mostly consisted of ‘how was your day.’ Marinette understandably glossed over her answer. Her classroom had been two thirds empty, missing Juleka, Rose, Lila, and for unrelated reasons, Adrien. At least she’d crashed early yesterday night and gotten a solid ten hours in bed. 

Kagami was left to fill time, and she’d walked through some dull details of her class. She couldn’t always read Marinette, but she thought the blue-eyed girl was grateful for a calm of mundanity in the stormy sea of her life. Marinette listened intensely until Kagami reached the end of her tale, her warning to Doo Ri.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “What’s wrong with archery lessons?”

“Have you ever shot a bow?” Kagami asked.

“No, but--”

“Show me how you think you’d do it.”

“Umm. Sure?” Marinette hyperextended her right arm, making Kagami weep internally for her elbow. She pulled her left hand making an awkward fist, up to her nose, with her elbow at a right angle to her torso. 

“Let me fix your form,” Kagami said. And then she sinuously traced her arm along Marinette’s, pressing her chest into her girlfriend’s back. “Relax your elbow,” she whispered directly into Marinette’s ear. “And don’t draw the string back at an angle. Pull it straight back, like this.” She reached in front Marinette to draw her own imaginary bowstring, trailing her fingers across Marinette’s collarbone the whole way. 

Still whispering, she said, “if someone offers you a one-on-one lesson in archery, billiards, tennis… make sure they don’t have an ulterior motive.”

With a shuddering breath, Marinette asked, “What about fencing?”

Kagami kissed the bridge of Marinette’s ear. “If it’s fencing, then I _definitely_ have an ulterior motive.”

“We… we should talk about this,” Marinette whispered back.

“This?”

“Touching.”

Kagami withdrew quickly as she could. “I overstepped--” she said from across the bench seat.

Marinette threw herself to Kagami’s side. “No, no no! Definitely not!” Her reinitiation of contact gave proof to her claim. “I just want to set some ground rules.”

Kagami inhaled through her teeth. “Of course.”

Marinette bit her lip. “You’re upset.”

“I’m not--”

Marinette slipped through Kagami’s guard and brushed their lips together. “You are.”

And with the kiss performing a soft reset on her brain, Kagami realized that Marinette was correct. “I live my life adhering strictly to rules. I do not object to them in principle. But you taught me that love and friendship cannot be forced into place by rigid guidelines. Cultivating the heart requires different methods than training the body and mind.”

“Okay, okay. Totally my fault for communicating badly. ‘Rules’ was the wrong word, I guess,” Marinette said. “Let me start again. I was asking Alya for dating advice--that’s okay with you, right?--and the girl knows me better than I know myself. She reminded me of something important. There’s one thing I hate more than anything else. Do you know what it is?”

“Liars,” Kagami answered instantly. 

Marinette stared blankly for a few moments, then snuck in another light kiss. Glowing slightly, she said, “There’s _two_ things I hate more than anything else. One is liars. Do you know what the other is?”

Kagami’s lips turned upwards unbidden. “I confess I do not.”

“I hate saying ‘no’ to people I care about,” Marinette answered, making Kagami fall even more in love.. “I’d much rather say ‘yes.’ So… in hindsight, ‘rules’ was a terrible way to phrase it. Alya said it better. She said I ought to say ‘yes’ at the beginning of the date, so I don’t have to say ‘no’ at the end.”

“I understand.” Kagami rested her cheek on Marinette’s shoulder. “I disagree with your semantics. A rule is a rule. But I see the _need_ for a rule, and I promise on my heart I shall abide by them.”

Marinette’s head tilted onto Kagami’s. “You don’t have to make everything so _serious,_ ” she said lightly. “Anyway.” She inhaled deeply. “Kagami? You can t-t-touch me a-anywhere a b-bikini leaves uncovered.”

That was… more permissive than Kagami expected. Impishly, she rested her hand on Marinette’s inner thigh, just above her knee. Marinette twitched slightly, but then relaxed. 

“D-do you have any rules for me?” asked Marinette.

Kagami drew small circles with her fingers. The satiny texture of Marinette’s matte slacks was soft under her fingertips. “Do you remember Girouette’s oath to Ladybug on the rooftop?”

Memory rendered Marinette breathless. “How could I forget?”

“Then have faith that your willingness to take will not exceed my willingness to give.”

The limo rolled to a stop. Its windows were tinted, but they let through the bright light of the neon sign of the Oculus restaurant, with a single great eye for its initial O. Marinette’s jitters left her alone for a bit, and she took up the role of gallant suitor with gusto, opening the car door offering a hand to Kagami as she found her feet. Arm in arm, they walked up the stairs. Their reservation was early, so there was no wait to be addressed by the maître d'. He looked at them with gray hair, beard, and eyes.

“Two. Tsurugi,” Kagami said. 

A manicured finger found the entry in the log book.“Of course, mademoiselle, monsieur.”

“Mademoiselle, actually.” Marinette’s boyish bravado had been short-lived, and she was tapping her fingers nervously. 

The maître d' gave her a once-over without his expression changing an iota. “My most sincere apologies, mademoiselle,” he said. His true level of sincerity was impossible to gauge. 

He flagged down a young waitress in black skirt, shirt, and leggings, emphasizing that “the two mademoiselles” were at table 16. Said mademoiselles were led up another flight of stairs to the dining room. On the way, Kagami said softly, “His mistake speaks well of the design and craft of your suit.”

“Really?” Marinette paused to hook their elbows once again. “I thought it spoke poorly of my bust size.”

“You don’t need to fish for compliments, Marinette. If you want to hear nice things about your figure, just ask.”

Kagami was ready to catch Marinette when she tripped over the next step. 

“Kagami, why are you so mean to meeee?” Marinette whined, steadying herself on the bannister.

“Because you’re cute,” Kagami answered. She gave Marinette a peck on the cheek. “But I will stop teasing for tonight.”

Marinette pouted. “Just for tonight?”

“Just for tonight,” Kagami said with a smile and another kiss.

Arrival at their table derailed that topic. Marinette remembered she was the ‘boy’ again, pulling out Kagami’s chair, and the two ordered water. Marinette pored over the menu until she noticed Kagami wasn’t doing the same. 

“You planned out your whole meal in advance, didn’t you?” Marinette asked. Kagami’s gut said the question was important, but Marinette was inscrutable. 

“A precondition of mother’s approval,” Kagami answered. “I’ll have more flexibility in my diet starting next week, when this round of fencing competition wraps up. I miss ice cream. But while I’m in full training mode, my dietician’s word is law.”

“Okay.” Marinette opened her menu. “So what _are_ you getting?”

“The asparagus appetizer and the chicken breast in white wine sauce. I will forego desert, but please don’t abstain on my behalf.”

“Asparagus. Yuck!” Marinette stuck out her tongue. “But good that you told me. I was going to order the chicken breast myself. I guess I’ll do the Arctic char, then?”

“I don’t understand. What’s stopping you from getting the chicken, if that’s what you want?”

“I’m mostly curious what it tastes like,” she said. “If I order something else, then we both get to taste a lot more flavors.”

“We both… get to taste?” Kagami asked. 

Marinette’s face morphed from confusion, to surprise, to pity. “You… you do know that couples can share food at restaurants, right?”

Kagami’s shame at her ignorance was irrational, yet persistent. “I was raised to find it classless.”

“Well, it’s not,” Marinette insisted. “I mean, if you did it with random friends it might be kinda gross. But we’re kissing anyway, so it’s not like a little more spit will make a difference! And listen to me, talking about spit and making it sound way weirder than it really is. Hey, what would you have ordered if you didn’t have a diet to worry about?”

Having spent nearly an hour scouring the menu, Kagami knew the answer right away. “The bacon-wrapped scallops and the lamb.”

“Right. Then that’s what I’m ordering.”

“But you shouldn’t--”

“Everything looks so good. I told you what I want _now_ , but I’d probably change my mind three times before the waitress got back here anyway. I’ll enjoy anything a restaurant of this calibre has to serve, so don’t worry about me. _You_ deserve to get everything you want out of this date, too.” 

Kagami wanted a number of things out of this date that she probably wouldn’t get, but she’d promised no more teasing. 

“It’s decided, then,” Kagami said with finality. Marinette nodded. 

Oculus earned its Michelin star with service as well as cuisine, and their waitress was at their side the moment they were ready to order. She took the maître d's hint and called both of the ‘mademoiselle.’ She otherwise treated Kagami as the female partner, filling her glass with sparkling water first and taking her order before Marinette’s. 

Once the waitress was back on her way to the kitchen, Kagami said, “Now, onto business.”

Marinette was vaguely unsettled. “Business?”

_Too forceful. Ease up._ Kagami made herself smile. It wasn’t as good as the ones Marinette brought out naturally, but it was better than her ‘friendship smiles.’ She’d had much practice smiling since then. “You still haven’t told me about this evening’s entertainment,” she said. “Also… I refuse to spoil today by dwelling on yesterday’s events, but I must know, have you heard from… him? Is he safe?”

“He is,” Marinette said. “He texted me later that night after his trip to Rome. He said he was sad, but holding up and not worried about butterflies. Also, he told me that his meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister went well. We have at most two or three weeks more of Signorina Rossi.”

“Good riddance.” Kagami didn’t like Lila, but the strength of her own hatred surprised her. 

“As for the concert, well…” Marinette’s ankle caressed Kagami’s under the table, seeking comfort, not titillation. “...that kind of involves yesterday, too. Kitty Section is opening for SMѲѲCH tonight.”

Kagami took several seconds to decipher that sentence. “SMѲѲCH. The old band with the facepaint and the tongues?”

“That’s them!” Marinette laughed with Kagami, not at her. “I thought they were going to cancel, but Juleka and Rose… they draw strength from each other. And the show must go on. And my designs are going to be front and center, and I heard rumors that some bigwigs from Gregorio Albani will be in attendance. I was going to skip it because I was totally freaking out and was going to make a scene. But you keep me sane, Kagami.” Her teeth gleamed white. “When you’re not teasing me, anyway.”

“So we are attending as guests of the band?”

Suddenly, Marinette’s smile was the forced one. “First row mezzanine. I have backstage passes too, but… Luka’s in the band with his sister. I want to tell him face to face about you and me, and telling him right before a big show would be cruel. I’m going to meet with him tomorrow.” The smile that had left her eyes returned to them. “On Sunday, though… I’ll change my social media status to ‘in a relationship with Kagami Tsurugi.’ If it’s okay with you--”

Kagami stood slightly and leaned over the table to kiss Marinette, and Marinette mirrored her. Their lips were centimeters apart, when…

_Flash._

Both sat down, blinking the afterimages of the camera out of their eyes. 

“Hey,” “what are you doing,” and similar calls of annoyance came from various tables in the dim dining space, none so loud as that of their waitress, who was joined by several other servers in black in escorting the cameraman back downstairs so quickly that Kagami never got to see him. 

Marinette blinked the last spots away. “What on earth was that about?” 

“Nothing to worry about, I’m sure,” Kagami reassured her. She was not, in fact, sure, but there was nothing to be done. “We’re finished with the business part. Now we can enjoy ourselves.” 

Marinette squirmed a little. Kagami sipped her sparkling water. Marinette did likewise. 

Marinette drew a little doodle in the condensation on the side of her glass. “We’re still not good at hanging out, are we?” 

“I still have several dozen ice breaker questions memorized--”

“No!” Marinette said just a bit too loudly, earning a few stairs and whispers. “No, those weren’t very good at getting us to know each other. And our date-night conversation shouldn’t just be an interview. Dinner’s awkward, since we can’t make anything or play games or…” her blue eyes brightened. “...that’s it. Let’s make it a game!”

“A game?” Kagami asked, excited by proxy from Marinette’s exuberance. 

“You can ask me your ice breaker questions, but instead of answering for myself, I’m going to try to guess how _you_ would answer them. And then you try to guess what I’d say!” 

“I… suppose that’s worth a try.” The waitress stopped by with a basket of piping hot rolls, serving them with tongs. Marinette slathered hers with butter. Kagami ate hers dry. “What is your favorite country you’ve visited, and what is the country you most want to visit?”

Marienette started to answer with her mouth full. “Do you count France as a visit?”

“Everyone I love lives her, so no. I consider it my second home.”

“Okay.” Marinette tapped her chin. “The only country I know for a fact you’ve visited is England, but you haven’t mentioned that trip since you took it. I know your family works with the Agrestes who do a lot of business in Asia, and you’ve studied gongfu, so I’m going to guess… China was your favorite visit? And you want to take me to Scandinavia. I’ve got a one-out-of-three chance… Norway?”

Softly, Kagami said, “You’re amazing.”

“Just lucky, I guess.” Marinette was rosy-cheeked. “Your turn?”

Kagami touched her chin and sifted through what little she knew of Marinette. “Your love of design and fashion are the driving forces of your life. But a bakery is hard work, so I doubt your parents have crossed the Atlantic since they had you. I guess Italy, and the U.S., as the place you loved and the place you wish to go respectively.”

“Not bad, not bad,” said Marinette. “Especially since it’s a trick question for me. The country I loved, and the country I want to visit, Italy.”

Kagami frowned slightly. “I don’t think that counts.”

“Well, it should, because where I’ve been to and where I want to go might as well be different planets,” she said. “The fashion thing was a solid start--I would _love_ to explore Milan, and that’s why New York is only number two. But I adored the rural part of Italy that I visited when I was eight. Nonna--err, my grandmother--lives on a villa with a friend of hers for the two months out of the year she’s not travelling. It’s idyllic. Rolling hills, tomatoes on the vine, sheep ranging freely. No TV and spotty reception, so teen Marinette would probably go crazy, but as a little kid I had a blast.”

Kagami absorbed the information, committing it to memory. “I like this variation. You were right. It’s more engaging than my previous efforts at… interrogation.”

“Then let’s keep going--”

_Flash_

Another photographer, or the same one perhaps, was quickly mobbed and escorted out. 

Kagami scowled. “Something is--”

“Let’s keep going!” Marinette repeated. “Ignore the weirdos. I’ve shaken off my nerves. I’m on a date with a very pretty girl. Let’s just enjoy each other, okay?”

“...okay.”

They kept up the game through the whole meal. Marinette guessed Kagami’s favorite color (red) but whiffed completely on her favorite food (tempura). Kagami easily identified Marinette’s favorite time-waster (video games) but stumbled on her ideal pet (a hamster). True to her word, Marinette shared her food. Kagami’s chicken was delicious, but not as good as the scallops or the lamb. 

As for the mystery of the intrusive photographers, the answer came after they’d cleaned their entree plates, while they were waiting for Marinette’s dessert (on the house, to apologize for the disruptions). Marinette’s phone chirped. It caused Kagami momentary annoyance when Marinette went to answer it, until she remembered just who she was dating. 

“It’s from Alya,” Marinette said, reading the notification on the lock screen. “My phone’s on silent but I have it set to go through anyway when I get an SOS. That _could_ mean she’s having a fight with her boyfriend. But it also could mean she’s got an akuma tip-off that hasn’t hit the alert system yet.”

“By all means,” said Kagami.

Marinette swiped her screen and looked at the chat with furrowed brow. She turned the screen sideways. Kagami read.

**Alya:** SOS! Girl, I’m so, so, so sorry!

 **Alya:** They asked for a stock photo but they told me it for a story about your designs.

 **Alya:** I would never, ever have helped them if I knew what were up to, I swear!

The phoned buzzed on the table. A fourth message consisting only of a hyperlink appeared on the screen. Marinette clicked it. Her phone opened a video app, and the logo of the TVi network swooped across the screen. 

“Hello hello hello,” said Alec. “This is Alec Cataldi, here with TVi’s gossip watch. My good friends Aurore and Mirielle are here with the latest scoop on the hottest teen social news in Paris!”

The screen cut to Mirielle and Aurore, seated on armchairs on opposite sides of a screen with the KidzTV logo. “Thanks Alec!” said Mirielle. “As our viewers probably know, the love life of Adrien Agreste is constantly in the news. Paris’s hottest young model is camera-shy despite his photogenic nature, so there’s constant speculation about his personal life. Is he single?”

Aurore took over, reading naturally from her teleprompter. “Rumors have swirled about him and two bachelorettes of his age. The first, Kagami Tsurugi, a world-class fencing prodigy and heir to the Raito Industrial Lighting fortune.” The screen displayed a photo of Kagami lunging with a foil in her school uniform. “The second, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, an up-and-coming designer whose work has been on stage with the likes of Jagged Stone!” Marinette’s photo was a well-framed candid shot of her standing on a bridge, laughing and holding a half-eaten ice cream parfait. It was captioned with photographer’s credit to Alya.

Mirielle’s turn. “Well, we can now confirm-- _neither_ of them are dating Adrien Agreste!” The screen cut to all three of them, Adrien in the middle, with broken-heart icons in between Adrien and his two former suitors. 

“That’s great news for all the girls of Paris, isn’t it, Mirielle?” Aurore asked. 

“Not _all_ the girls,” said Mirielle. “Most of our female viewership is on team Agreste, but some of our audience’s tastes run towards a softer persuasion of love. And for them, this news is devastating: Marinette and Kagami are now dating each other!” Timed with her pronouncement, the graphic of Adrien shattered and dropped off the screen, and Kagami and Marinette’s picture expanding till they overlapped. A pulsing heart overlay turned their photos purple. 

“Oh, no!” said Aurore with sympathetic horror. “I’m sorry, lady lovers. Looks like _both_ bachelorettes are off the market--two heartbreaks for the price of one!”

“But is this the real deal?” asked Mirielle. “Or just a fling between lonely exes?”

“We’ll stay on top of it,” Aurore recited, and then the two finished in unison: “on Kidz TV Gossip watch!”

Marinette and Kagami stared at the spinning TVi logo. 

“That… is…” Kagami’s seething anger was stoppered by her own manners. Outwardly still, she sated her bloodlust by imagining herself storming down the stairs and punching the papparazzi cameramen in their stupid faces. 

“...fine!” Marinette was manic, but trying. “Totally fine! It’s not like we were trying to keep it a real secret anyway, and I’ve already been chased down the street by Adrien’s fans and that wasn’t so bad, and there’s no way this will ruin Luka’s show because he won’t be watching TV when the concert’s in an hour, and _thank God dessert is here!”_

Dessert was a massive wedge of black forest cake, dripping with whipped cream and covered in cherries. Kagami had told the staff that the dessert was all for Marinette. The waitress put the cake in the middle of the table with two spoons anyway. Kagami looked at her and got a saucy wink in return; as she suspected, this restaurant was too high-class to make that kind of mistake unintentionally. 

Marinette wolfed down a quarter of the slice in an instant. The chocolate had a sedating effect, burying her anxiety in sugar and fat. Calm again, she held up her enticing, chocolatey spoonful, and pushed it towards Kagami’s lips.

“My diet…” she said.

“I’ ‘oo nee’,” Marinette began, then swallowed and tried again. “If you need to stick with it, I can’t make you eat this delicious, delicious cake. But… you’re very dedicated to your fencing diet for someone who’s lost passion for fencing.”

“The reality is, I cannot abandon fencing without abandoning my mother’s training and support,” Kagami replied. “And I’m good enough to compete. And an Olympic victory will give me stories to tell when I’m old and blind, even if the gold itself is meaningless.”

“If gold is meaningless, why torture yourself?” Marinette spun the cake in a tempting circle in front of Kagami’s face. 

Kagami’s eyes involuntarily tracked the mouthwatering morsel. “Because… I’ve always strived for the best at everything I do.”

“Kagami, even if you only come in second,” Marinette said, “I’m not going anywhere. You’ll still be the silver medalist dating Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Marinette was right. The cake was delicious.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience over winter break, and happy New Year to everyone!

“The mademoiselles are certain they want to use the back exit?” asked the maitre d’. The big, ugly metal door was as dingy as the front of house was polished. Greasy handprints scattered rainbow light across its rusty surface. 

Marinette nodded. “There’s paparazzi hanging out in front, and my friend says we’ll have ‘backup’ out here. Whatever that means.”

“Then I wish the mademoiselles a pleasant evening.” The older man wrapped a napkin around his hand before touching the door handle. The back alley smelled of rotten food and mildew. One of the two dumpsters on the far wall was stuffed to overflowing. A rat crawled across the rim off the other. 

Kagami shuddered in disgust. “Necessary, but unpleasant.”

“The sewers are worse,” said Marinette. Kagami almost asked how she knew that before remembering for the fifth or sixth time that evening that she was dating Ladybug. She hadn’t truly forgotten, of course, but she’d yet to fully internalize that fact and all its implications on her life.

She didn’t have time to ruminate. Before the door had fully closed behind them, and young man with dark, slicked-back hair ran up to them with a mini-recorder in hand. “Mlles. Dupain-Cheng and Tsurugi any comments on--”

Then, the slick man was hauled bodily into the air, walked across the alley, and tossed head first into the rat-infested dumpster.

“Hey!” cried the reporter. “You can’t do this! I’ll sue--” he started to threaten. The person who had done the tossing--an amazonian woman in yellow spandex--slammed a canvas-wrapped fist into the side of the dumpster, dropping the lid and silencing his whining.

“Anansi!” said a star-struck Marinette.

The kickboxer pounded her knuckles together. “Alya said you two flyweights had gotten in over your head! Fortunately, Anansi is here to bail you out.”

“This is…?” Kagami inquired.

“Alya’s big sister,” Marinette explained. “Her real name’s Nora, but Anansi is her ring name. Anansi, this is my girlfriend, Kagami. Thanks for coming.”

“Maybe now you can get my kid sis to listen when I warn her about how crazy the world is,” said Anansi. Wearing a giant grin to match her giant stature, Anansi bounced one her toes up to Marinette and threw a few playful blows in her direction. “Just cause you’re dressed up all tough doesn’t mean you’re ready to go out on your own, Baguette!” 

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Marinette said from behind her arms. 

Anansi’s punches were completely harmless, but Marinette was still wilting under the onslaught. Friendly or not, the behavior triggered a protective instinct in Kagami. She slid between the two, deflected a low jab, and countered with a palm strike towards the boxer’s belly. 

Anansi hooked the blow with a low arm bar and spun back with a half-speed hook at Kagami’s jaw. Kagami threw her head backwards, and riposted with her own hook. Anansi ignored her immense height advantage in favor of somehow ducking  _ under  _ Kagami’s swing. With no sword in hand and platform shoes on her feet. Kagami’s balance was off. She took a single step to correct for her overextension. In that interval, an uppercut flew through her guard, stopping just short of contact. The rough cloth of the hand wrap tickled her chin. 

“Hot damn!” said Anansi, who hadn’t stopped smiling through the whole exchange. “The wrong one of you is wearing the pants. Looks like I’m gonna have to upgrade you to a bantamweight!”

“There are many kinds of strength,” Kagami said, frowning at her easy defeat. “One can maintain one’s femininity while fighting. One does not  _ need  _ to become a brute in order to be a warrior.”

“A brute, huh?” Anansi flexed her arm and kissed her oversized bicep. “Thanks for the compliment!”

The woman was overbearing and boorish, but Kagami could at least respect her strength. Kagami extended a hand. Anansi shook it violently. “You’re the fencer, right? Nice to meetcha, Stabby. Now, where am I taking you?”

Kagami cringed at the nickname, but she withdrew her phone from her small black clutch and checked the GPS. “The limo is pulling up to Rue Fleur Bleu as we speak.”

“Perfect,” said Nora. “So we’ll head out the alley. The restaurant entrance is to the right; your car is to the left. You two head straight for your car. I’ll be between you and the pests, cracking skulls if anyone gives chase. Got it?”

“Got it!” said Marinette, carried along by the tide of Anansi’s enthusiasm. 

“Then let’s go!”

\-----

The plan went off without a hitch. Nora did not crack any actual skulls, thankfully, choosing instead to scoop up a photographer in each hand and bull rush a third halfway down the block. The girls waved goodbye to her before slamming the limo door and collapsing on top of each other in a fit of giggles. 

“Is it bad that I thought that was kinda fun?” Marinette said, hugging Kagami and then checking that her ponytail was still in place. 

“Some people are just asking for it.” Kagami checked her own hair in the reflection in the tinted window. Still perfect. 

“Hang on.” Marinette took her phone from her inner jacket pocket. “Lemme let Alya know we got out...oh, come on, mom, really?”

Kagami’s eyes reflexively peeked at Marinette’s screen, but she made herself look away before she could read anything. The motion was obvious, however, and Marinette held up the phone for Kagami to read. 

**Maman:** Marinette, this attention-seeking behavior needs to stop!   
**Maman:** Calling in reporters is taking this way too far.

“I need to phone my dad,” Marinette said, staring at her phone with hard eyes. 

“Of course.”

Marinette tapped her fathers’ contact. Her leg bounced up and down nervously. Kagami pressed her hand on Marinette’s knee to arrest the fidgeting motion. Marinette jerked her head to the side, startled, but then smiled and mouthed ‘thank you.’

“Papa? I just got a crazy text from mom,” she said. “Why the heck does she think  _ I  _ called in reporters?”

Marinette blinked. “They  _ what _ ?”

Marinette’s hand sought out Kagami’s and clenched it with distressing force. “There’s no way that I’d send something like that! It can’t have come from me!”

“Wait, read that again. Yeah, that’s not mine--I have a dot-fr domain on my email, not a dot-com. Whoever sent that email was trying to make me look bad.”

Then Marinette sagged into Kagami’s side. “I don’t care if maman apologizes or not, papa. I don’t want to hear it. Just let us enjoy our date in peace. I love you.” She disconnected.

The limousine rode smoothly, with no jostling or jarring. Occasionally, the two girls would be pressed together a little harder by the centrifugal force of a turn, but otherwise they had a peaceful stillness to themselves. Neither of them disturbed the silence for several long minutes.

A few minutes later, Marinette spoke. “It’s the last dying gasps of someone who knows she’s been beaten. She can’t actually do anything except be a pest. We just need to ride it out, and wait for her to get kicked out of the country.”

Kagami, too, had deduced that Lila was the only suspect with the means and motive to try to sabotage Marinette’s night. She’d declined to raise the topic, for fear of setting off an emotional reaction in her anxiety-prone girlfriend. Fortunately, Marinette was taking it about as well as possible. “A petty prank.”

“I won’t let it screw up our date.”

“Nor will I.”

“I made you a present,” Marinette said suddenly.

“Gifts are totally unnecessary--”

“Oh,  _ stop _ .” Marinette set her jaw, and Kagami knew she had already lost the argument. “You don’t get to spend hundreds of euros on a limo and tell me I can’t give you  _ anything  _ back. Besides, I needed to make a prototype anyway, and I’d rather it be useful rather than going straight into the trash as soon as I make it.”

“A… prototype?”

“A prototype. This one’s for you, but I actually made it with your mother in mind.” The present lived in her other inner pocket, opposite her phone. To all appearances it was a simple strip of black cloth, though it was thick and rattled slightly. “Right wrist, please.” Kagami complied.

Marinette wrapped the cloth around Kagami’s wrist like a bracelet. “A lot of clothing is designed to be heard and felt, but the primary function of almost all design is to  _ look  _ good.” She placed Kagami’s left hand over the cloth. Something lumpy hid underneath, sandwiched between layers of satin. “I’m experimenting with clothing that  _ can’t  _ be appreciated with eyes. There’s a layer of beadwork underneath the cloth that can be felt, but not seen.”

That made sense of what Kagami felt. Rows of beads, with some larger than the other, painting out a pattern of some sort. A design? A picture? 

No. Braille.

“ _ Un pour tous et tous pour un.  _ You made this?” Kagami asked.

Marinette beamed. “Yeah, the beading took  _ forever.  _ I’ll need to automate it if I want to do anything bigger than an accessory. And I need to figure out how to incorporate more senses than just touch. Aside from the obvious of dunking it in perfume.” 

Marinette’s mood had been buoyed by her love for work, energising her with unlimited confidence. But all of a sudden, she remembered that she was an anxious girl afraid of losing other’s approval. “If… if you think it’s worth pursuing, that is.”

Kagami threw her leg over Marinette’s lap, straddling her and pinning her shoulders back to the car seat. “Let me show you what I think,” she said.

“Eep!” squealed Marinette. 

Kagami’s lips silenced her, and she said no more for the rest of the ride.

\-----

Kagami and Marinette leaned against each other as they waited in the admissions line for the concert hall, both dazed by the sweet taste of romance (with a pinch of lust for spice). They were, as predicted, far overdressed for the occasion. The majority were dressed in tees and jeans, with a smattering of spiked leather and face paint. None were dressed in anything more formal than shirts and slacks, though a girl in a button down with another skirt-clad girl on her arm had stopped to give Marinette an unsolicited high-five.

The hall itself was old, rebuilt post-war and barely maintained since then. Its grandiose facade of wooden filigree peeled and warped with age, revealing the old elm behind the gilded mural of ancient battles. The glass in front of the “SMѲѲCH, one night only” posters was dirt-stained in some places and cracked in others. To Kagami’s surprise, however, the fire inspection certificate, posted just past the ticket-checker with a bad case of B.O, was up to date as of last month. Nonetheless, she memorized the exit route in case of a fire. One could not be too careful in a building of this vintage. 

The couple was half an hour ahead of schedule, so they stopped at the merch booth. Marinette swelled with pride at the Kitty Section tees displayed on mannequins next to a wide selection from the main attraction. Then she practically bounced with joy, pointing out the person three ahead of them in line: the young Kitty Section superfan who had once been Mister Mirror staggering under the bulk of an armful of shirts and CDs. 

“It warms my heart to see Hawk Moth’s villainy backfire,” she said. “He tries to bring out the worst version of people, but sometimes seeing yourself at your worst is what you need to become better.”

“How often does that happen?” Kagami inquired.

“Not as often as I’d like,” she said. “Pretty much everyone comes out of akumatization having learned some kind of lesson, but it’s hit or miss whether it sticks. Gabriel Agreste gave Adrien maybe a week of slack before he went back to being a jerk. Kim waited three months after Dark Cupid to realize Ondine was into him. And Chloe… with her, it’s two steps forward, two steps back.”

“I see. That sounds… frustrating.”

“It is,” she said without losing her smile. “But little things like that fan make it all worth it. Though, let’s drop the topic with so many prying ears around, okay?”

“Of course.” Kagami would have dropped the topic regardless, since it was maudlin and spoiling the mood. But Marinette was right, and Kagami needed to keep tighter lips. She leaned over to gift Marinette with an apologetic kiss. 

Marinette, looking past Kagami in wide-eyed shock, dodged.

Kagami caught herself and spun to look at what had startled her love. The answer approached with blue hair and blue eyes.

“Luka?” Marinette asked anxiously. “Shouldn’t you be backstage getting prepped--”

He grinned. “I took a break, for you,” he said.

Marinette awkwardly opened her arms for a hug. Luka responded in kind, but he moved forward with a singular purpose and puckered lips. Kagami’s instincts screamed warning. Marinette froze in place as he swooped towards her. Kagami’s hand shot out in the nick of time. 

Instead of Luka’s lips landing on Marinette’s, they kissed Kagami’s open palm. 

Marinette shoved him away, or perhaps Luka jumped backwards--Kagami couldn’t determine who had imparted his momentum. “Luka, what are you  _ doing? _ ” Marinette asked, nearly purple with anger. 

“Whoah, my bad, Marinette!” He held his hands in front of him like he was taming a wild tiger. If he was afraid of violence, however, he was misidentifying the threat. Kagami’s fingers closed around the baton in her purse. But no, he wasn’t speaking at if he had attempted an unconscionable violation. Playing it off as a joke, he said, “I guess you didn’t  _ really  _ mean ‘as soon as I saw you,’ and that’s my fault for assuming. I took your email too literally.”

“Email? What are you talking about?”

“Really, Mari? I know you can be forgetful, but this is a bit much even for you.” He grinned. “The one you sent me a little while ago, saying you had to be here to see me playing? Where you said you wanted to kiss me?”

“Oh. Oh,  _ no. _ ” Marinette’s knees nearly buckled. Kagami was at her side instantly, waving away a similar attempt by Luka to help.

Marinette’s shock was only temporarily. Seconds later, her hands formed claws in the air as she came to grasp what had happened. “That… witch _.  _ That  _ monster!  _ I thought yesterday was the bottom, but she keeps going  _ lower! _ ”

“You’re talking about Lila,” Luka said queasily. “Oh, crap. That email--”

“Came from a dot-com address, right?”

“And you’re dot-fr. I can’t believe I missed that--”

“Don’t,” Marinette said, and Kagami was amazed that no one had ever suspected her of being Ladybug. There had to be magic, a glamour, because the command in her voice was unique and unmistakable. “Don’t beat yourself up for something that’s not your fault. You’re not the first person Lila has fooled, but she hasn’t won yet. All that matters tonight is that you show the world that Kitty Section is the real deal.”

“Of course, Marinette,” Luka said with love and guilt dueling in his eyes. “And… Kagami, right? We never really talked at the ice rink, but I owe you big time. You stood up for Marinette, and you saved me from making a huge mistake. You’re a good friend.”

Kagami opened her mouth, but Marinette spoke too quickly. “She is! A great  _ friend, _ ha ha ha! We’re good friends, getting juice together and talking about baking!”

_ Oh. Right.  _

Luka loved Marinette. This was to be expected. The true surprise was that so  _ few  _ people were in love with her. And Marinette, being Marinette, couldn’t bear the idea of causing pain to someone she cared about.

“...we try not to talk about him, he’s no big deal, you know, and there’s no reason for anything like that to ruin a  _ friendship! _ ”

And Kagami was the one pushing and pushing and pushing for this relationship, much more aggressively than she had with Adrien. That was to some extent strategic; Adrien’s ingrained passivity was a very different beast from Marinette’s pathological fear of rejection. But the fact remained that Marinette still thought of this relationship as experimental, so naturally she might get cold feet. 

“...so this seemed like a great place to have the support of a friend while I watch this concert…”

Furthermore, the reality was that Kagami and Marinette would sometimes have to play at being best friends. Kagami wasn’t seriously entertaining her mother’s idea of a sham marriage, but she wanted to travel, and that included visiting places where discretion was the better part of valor. The thought was agonizing, because Kagami wanted to trumpet her love from the rooftops, but--

“Hey.”

Kagami was staring at an unfamiliar pair of blue eyes. Luka had entered her personal space without alerting her. She took a step backwards, wobbling on her heels. 

“What’s wrong, Kagami?” 

He was being kind, but Kagami was in no mood. “Nothing.”

He swung his guitar from his back to ready position and his fingers started dancing over its strings. He was playing a march, ordered, methodical, and energetic. “Normally you sound like this,” he said. “With a little bit of this--” a rushing staccato straight from a chase scene in a movie, “--when you’re stopping me from making an ass of myself. But all of a sudden, I’m hearing this…” His music slowed gradually, turning more and more glum and plaintive. 

Kagami crossed her arms in front of her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

But Marinette was shaken. “Oh, no, no, no. Kagami, that’s not… I didn’t…”

“Marinette, ignore this charade. I’m fine,” Kagami said. Yet her head was pinned under an invisible weight and she couldn’t lift it to meet Marinette’s eyes. 

“No, you’re not, Kagami.” Marinette’s fingers brushed Kagami’s cheek. “Luka’s empathy can pierce even your self-control. If he hears you that way, it means you’re upset. And I’m to blame.”

“You are not,” Kagami said sharply. “Do not allow my weakness to stop you from doing what’s right.”

“If your heart is playing that kind of music, then what I’m doing can’t possibly be right,” Marinette said fervently. Her hand maintained its comforting presence. “Luka, I didn’t tell you I was coming today because I didn’t want anything to distract your from the band’s big show. But I can’t make Kagami feel like…  _ that _ . She’s my girlfriend. We’re here on a date.”

“Oh,” Luka said. 

Still staring at Kagami, Marinette said, “I’m not able to return your affections, Luka. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” He stroked the guitar, which responded with a discordant yowl. “That’s good for you two.”

Kagami needed something physical, but she wasn’t the kind of petty that would rub in her victory with a kiss and a grope. So, she pecked Marinette’s cheek, held her hand, and then turned her so she could face her friend. Luka had shown concern for Kagami, a relative stranger. Marinette was right: Luka deserved better than this. 

“Luka, I know I said--” 

A single finger pressed to Marinette’s lips, quelling her apology. 

Luka sat down cross-legged in the middle of the hall. He closed his eyes, and he played a song. It was deep, heavy with basses and low tones. It started soft, like hidden footsteps, someone afraid to be seen. But then it picked up, skipping across the lower range of the guitar almost playfully. He played faster and faster, with more and more glee, never departing from the bass, conveying an impression of joy barely restrained. 

“That’s beautiful,” Marinette said softly. A crowd was gathering in the hallway to listen, and Kagami cleaved to Marinette’s side. “What is it?”

The answer came from the crowd. “It’s Juleka.” 

“You got it, Rose,” Luka said. Rose, pink as always, pushed between a pair of overweight fans. Luka turned to address her. “But not just any old Juleka. That was Jule right after you asked her out. A pale imitation, anyway. The sound of her heart was absolutely magical. I can’t do it justice.”

“Oh my gosh,” said Rose, swooning. “She really… it meant that much? Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I love that girl so much…”

“I know. But anyway, what’s up?”

Rose snapped back to reality. “I should ask you that! You skip out on sound check and now you’re jamming in the hall. And Marinette and Kagami? You’re not supposed to be here!”

“It was them, wasn’t it?” Luka asked abruptly. “They’re the couple who inspired you out of the closet?”

“Oh, I have absolutely no idea what you could--” Rose began. Marinette shook her head. Rose sighed and made a shrug that was both cute and apologetic. “Yeah, it was them. Sorry, Luka. We were waiting for the right time--”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. He used his guitar to lever himself back off the ground. He opened his arms. “Just a hug, I promise,” he said. Marinette glanced at Kagami, who nodded, and then embraced him. 

“Mari.” Luka’s smile was genuine and warm. “You’re an amazing girl, and I like you a lot. But I’d give up anything to make my little sister happy. Even you.”

To Kagami, this was a perfect illustration of the exact flaw that kept Marinette from picking him He was  _ passive, _ even compared to young M. Agreste. And yet, she respected his dedication to family. Marinette shared the sentiment. “Don’t give up seeking your own happiness, Luka,” she said, returning to her place at Kagami’s side.

“Thanks, Mari.” He slung his guitar strap over his shoulder. “Gotta run. Sound check, like Rosie said.”

“I’m glad you’re here, Marinette,” Rose scolded, “but  _ think  _ before you do things like this! If Luka weren’t such a cool guy…”

“It wasn’t her fault,” said Luka. “She was supposed to be here in secret. Someone was just playing a nasty prank, that’s all.” 

“Someone… playing a nasty prank?” A tremor ran through Rose’s body. She grabbed Luka’s wrist and yanked him to a halt. “Was it her? It was  _ her, _ wasn’t it? Is she here? No, no, no, no--”

“Rose, you’re safe, I promise!” Marinette practically tackled her in a hug. “We’ll leave. She upended your life, but she was never after you. She was using you to get at me.” Her eyes shimmered. “I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. But we’ll keep you safe, no matter what, I promise. We’ll just head home--”

“No.”

Rose found her words between gasps. “Kagami?”

Kagami couldn’t defend Paris as Ryuuko again. Her identity was exposed, and she’d burn out her eyes if she kept transforming. But she could still fight. It wasn’t like Lila was an akuma or a miraculous holder. She, like Kagami, was just a girl. “Rose, Marinette. I refuse to allow Lila to cause more pain than she has.” A goal crystallized in her mind’s eye, Lila walked off site by bouncers, Marinette on Kagami’s arm, Rose and Juleka screaming in their kitty masks. “I will not permit it.”

“Kagami,” Marinette said softly, for her ears only. “I’m tired. I can’t keep up a war on this many fronts.”

“Then I will fight for you.”

“Are you sure?”

“On my honor.”

Marinette rubbed the back of Kagami’s hand with her thumb. Still hesitant, she said, “Okay.”

“Rose, take Marinette to your dressing room. Luka will take me to speak with security.” 

“Wait, you’re leaving me alone?” Marinette shook her head. “I can’t--”

“Marinette.” Kagami was no Ladybug, but her voice could command as well. Marinette listened. “I need to speak to security. But I  _ swear  _ that I will collect you before the show begins.”

Already searching the crowd for hidden daggers, Marinette nervously replied, “If… if you really promise...” 

“Thank you for trusting me.” 

With a weak smile, Marinette said, “How could I doubt your promise,  _ mon Mousquetaire? _ ”

Kagami re-read the message hidden in her bracelet. “I will ensure security is on watch for any further attempts to interfere with our evening. We must move. I cannot keep the band from their sound check any longer.”

Rose and Marinette shuffled off arm in arm, and Luka walked Kagami back towards the ticket check, were a burly bouncer wore an earpiece and a shirt that said ‘staff.’ On his way, he asked, “Do you think security can help with any more pranks like this?”

“May I see the email that you were sent?”

“Sure.” He pulled it up on his phone and handed it to her. Kagami didn’t bother to check the address or the text. Instead, a single detail confirmed her suspicion.

“We arrived at the venue at 19:26. This email was sent at 19:27.”

Luka’s eyes scanned the crowd. “So that means…”

“That means Lila watched us come in,” Kagami said coolly. “She’s here.”

“That’s not good,” said Luka.

“On the contrary, It’s quite fortunate,” Kagami said.

“It is?” 

“If she were continuing to harass us electronically, we’d be helpless. But if she’s here in person…” Kagami squeezed her fist, imagining the wind and lightning of the storm surging through her. “If she’s here...then I can  _ hunt her down _ .”


	4. Chapter 4

“Mademoiselle, you can’t be in here!”

“She’s cool, Yogesh. Guest of the band.”

Kagami flashed her shiny new backstage pass at the crotchety guard who sat in front of an array of ancient monitors. His wrinkled uniform cast motley shadows over his body in the black-and-white lite of the staticky screens. His face, also wrinkled, scrunched unpleasantly. “Still don’t like her in here. This is _my_ room.”

The guard accompanying her, tall, overweight, and a third Yogesh’s age, rumbled in annoyance. “Dude, stop whining. Creepy stalker’s hanging out, she knows who she’s looking for. Band says let her in.”

Childhood in Japan had equipped Kagami to handle crotchety old men. “I will not take much of your time, Monsieur,” she said with a bow.

“Touch _anything_ without permission and I’m tossing you out, band be damned.” His ancient reclining chair was broken and reclined back further than intended. He made no effort to straighten up, so Kagami had to scoot around him. 

The theatre was was too busy for Kagami’s view of the monitors to do her much good. The lights in the hall flicked on and off to remind concert-goers to find their seats, but large sections of the crowd ignored the ten-minute warning, perhaps expecting delays or foolishly deciding to skip the opening act. Last-minute arrivals were haggling outside with various scalpers and dealers, and the line to the merch booth had gotten longer as the evening progressed. 

“Whatcha looking for, girl?” the crusty guard asked. 

“A girl about my age. Long brown hair, bangs, dark eyes--”

“You won’t find her,” he said. 

Studying the screens with futile intensity, she replied, “Don’t underestimate me.”

“You come into _my_ room, announce you’re doing it all wrong, and lecture me on underestimating you?” He crossed his arms without sitting upright. “I should toss you out right now.”

His attitude pricked her pride, but her mission had priority. “Doing it wrong?” she asked.

“Well, if mademoiselle high-and-mighty would _ask_ instead of traipsing in like a--”

“Please, Monsieur, I’d appreciate your guidance.”

The old man stopped mid-harangue. “Huh,” he said. “Usually you young folks are stubborn about asking for help. My grandson Dinesh and his posse treat me like dirt, but they don’t know I can see ‘em. I let ‘em _think_ they’ve figured out my blind spots, but in this theatre, I have _none!_ ” He tapped his eye.

“I… see.” Kooks and geniuses often sounded similar, and Kagami was unsure which she was dealing with. “So, I am looking incorrectly?”

He shot upright with a jerky suddenness that made Kagami jump. “Only things that matter are gender and height. How tall?”

“What are you--?”

“Hair can be dyed! Eyes covered in sunglasses! Clothes changed! But your height can’t lie, even in heels or platforms. What are you looking for?”

“A girl of 165 centimeters,” Kagami said, reconsidering her strategy.

“Now, next question. Is she clever?” 

Back in the world of screens, she answered half-distracted. “What?”

“Is she _clever,_ girl! Is this the totally nutso kind of stalker, or the kind that’s sane and smart enough to be dangerous?”

“The latter,” she said. 

“Good, good,” the old man answered smugly. “She’ll be on the edge of a screen, then.”

Leaning towards ‘kook,’ Kagami skeptically asked, “And you know this… how?” 

He smirked. “You see, clever people think they know how cameras work. They think they can figure out angles and ranges in their heads, because they’re so clever. But I’m cleverer! I’ve personally installed fish-eye lenses on every camera in this building! They’re all wider pictures than the clever people expect.”

So he was a mad genius after all, the panopticon of this dilapidated theatre. She scanned his screen with new perspective, a psychological tunnel vision unrelated to the gradual degradation at the edges of her retinae. 

“‘Course even with all that, you won’t find her,” he said. “Takes _years_ of practice to become one with the cameras--”

Kagami’s finger shot out like a bullet. “There.”

“Wha… well, I’ll be damned.”

Kagami’s finger had pinned down a girl at the edge of the outer camera. She was hovering at the periphery of the camera’s image, as predicted, looking suspiciously back and forth behind face-concealing sunglasses. Loops of braids spilled out from a cap above a tall, wide forehead. The cap bulged, as if thick bangs had been tucked underneath it. 

“You got an eye on you, young girl,” Yogesh said. “Shoulda noticed her suspicious skulking myself.”

“I would not have succeeded without your wisdom, Monsieur,” she said, making him puff up. “If you can spare me a few guards--”

“No can do, mademoiselle.” He held none of his former sneer as he shrugged. “She’s on the public street. Unless she’s got a restraining order you can show me or she sets foot in the venue, our hands are tied.”

Kagami didn’t waste time objecting. “Then I will have to deal with her personally.” 

“You can’t have my pepper spray!”

Kagami felt for the baton in her purse. “I won’t need it.”

\-----

Lila was gone by the time Kagami got outside. 

“Did you see a young teen girl, about this high, in braids, and sunglasses?”

The ticket taker shrugged

“Useless!” Kagami stalked past the entryway to start a circuit of the building. Behind her, the lights in the hall flickered again. It was nearing showtime. 

“Hey young lady.” The speaker, a middle-aged man with a pot-belly and bad combover, moved to cut off her path. “Need a ticket?”

“I need to find a girl in shades and a cap who was out here a few minutes ago,” said Kagami.

“Well, she didn’t buy a ticket either, and I’ve got some slips of cardboard burning a hole in my pocket,” the man said. “So how about we scratch each other’s backs, right, missy?”

“Do you take credit cards?” asked Kagami.

He gestured to his shabby clothes. “Do I _look_ like I take credit cards?”

Sickened at the waste of time this ugly man represented, Kagami began to lose her cool. “Then I most certainly cannot purchase your tickets. Now, where is she?”

“Look, I’m just tryin’ ta make a living here…”

“Bah!” Kagami threw her hands up in disgust. “Then you’re no use to me.”

She started to look for other passersby who might have witnessed Lila absconding. But the scalper said “Now hang on, little missy,” and grabbed her by the wrist.

A simple twist broke her arm free of his feeble grasp, and a flick of her hand brought the point of her baton a centimeter from the man’s nose.

“Hey hey hey,” he said, backing away. “You can’t just go around swinging weapons like that! That’s illegal!”

“By all means,” Kagami said, “call the police. I look forward to your explanation for why a fifteen-year-old girl _needed_ to swing her weapon illegally?”

“Wait, you’re fifteen? Shee-yit, you gotta know I didn’t mean anything by holdin’ your wrist like that--”

“Convince me,” Kagami said. “Where did the other girl go?”

“That way, that way!” He pointed around the building, to a loading area in back. “Now, let’s not go gettin’ any police involved, okay, little missy?”

She didn’t bother acknowledging him. She didn’t have the time. She raced around the building, ready to seek her target and, if necessary, to destroy it.

\-----

Kagami was grateful that this alley didn’t smell nearly as bad as the one behind the restaurant. Rather than trash, this space was lined with utilities: vents, loading gates, transformer boxes, and the like. And there was the girl in the cap and braids, looking at her watch and hefting something over her shoulder.

Kagami pointed an accusatory finger. “This ends now, Lila Rossi.”

The girl looked at Kagami, and despite the poor lighting and the disguise, Kagami saw that it was Lila for sure. Nevertheless, she replied, “I’m sorry, who?” 

“You cannot be serious, Lila,” said Kagami.

“But I can’t be Lila Rossi. She’s livestreaming to an audience of dozens from her apartment as we speak!” 

Kagami prepared a retort, but then Lila turned and gave Kagami a good look at what she held over her shoulder: a fireman’s axe. 

Kagami’s eyes shot open and adrenaline pumped through her veins. She kicked off her heels; her bare soles were cold on the pavement, but traction was all that mattered. Her purse fell to the ground at her side, and her baton flicked open in a low ready stance.

“What are you…” Lila said. Then she gestured with the axe. “Oh, this thing? You’ve got an inflated opinion of yourself if you think _you_ are worth getting my hands bloody.”

Kagami tensed her legs. “You will not touch Marinette.”

“Her either,” Lila mocked. “Really, you’ve got _no_ sense of priority.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Kagami’s pulse practically hummed with danger. “After all you’ve done to Marinette? You spend the evening harassing a girl that you hate, are found out with a weapon and a disguise, and expect me to believe your innocence?”

Lila checked her watch again. “You know what? Screw it. I’ve got time to kill, diplomatic immunity, and an airtight alibi. Let’s talk Marinette.”

“Yes,” said Kagami. “Let’s.” 

Lila took off her sunglasses, hanging them from her collar. “I gotta say, she’s a lot less annoying now that she’s figured out that she doesn’t have a seat at Adrien’s table. Ordinarily, I’d be perfectly fine letting her scrape the floor for his leftovers.” She extended the axe in Kagami’s direction. “That’s you, in case you didn’t catch my meaning.”

Kagami growled. 

Unfazed, Lila continued. “Unfortunately, circumstances outside my control mean I can’t sit back and enjoy the sight of her wallowing in her failure. Destroying her has become a necessary means to an end, no thanks to you.”

Kagami was confident that she could take down Lila if it came to blows, but she was not reckless enough to engage in combat with an axe-wielding psychopath if there was any path to a non-violent resolution. _Let her monologue,_ she thought, and she said, “No thanks to me?”

Lila’s answer festered with malice. “No thanks to you. See, I’m getting kicked out of the country, courtesy of the meddling of Ladybug and Chat Noir.”

“And that’s my fault… how?” 

“It’s your fault,” Lila hissed, “because it never would have happened if you’d _done your job_ and handed their Miraculouses to Hawk Moth.”

“If I…” Kagami wasn’t puzzled for very long. “You mean Oni-chan.”

“Give the girl a cookie!” Lila clapped awkwardly with the axe in her hand, but readied it menacingly when Kagami started to slide forward. “Oni-chan was powerful. Teleportation, weapons skills, athletics. You should have been a threat. Instead, you were such an utter disaster of an akuma that you teleported straight into a trap. And thus, I’m left with no alternative but escalating to someone _competent_ if I want a decent akuma to get my revenge for me. You know, before I’m deported.”

Kagami’s stance nearly faltered. Marinette had said that Lila kept finding new lows to sink to. The designer had no idea how right she was. “So you _are_ working with Hawk Moth?” Kagami said in disbelief. 

“Well, ‘working with’ is a bit of a stretch.” Lila grinned, resting her axe back over her shoulders. “But I know which side of my bread gets the butter.”

“You’re a villain,” Kagami stated. “I will stop you.”

“Who do you think you are, Ladybug?” Lila shook her head. “No, I don’t think you’re going to stop me. In fact, knowing what I know about you, I think you’re going to head back inside and let me mosey on home.”

“And why would I do that?”

The walls of the theater were thin, and the speakers to the show were loud. The start of the show was audible even from the back alley. An announcer screamed, “Ladies and gentlemen, madams and monsieurs, put your hands together for Kitty Section!”

“That’s my cue.” Lila hefted the axe over her head. “And to answer your question: you’ll let me go, because chasing me would mean leaving your girlfriend _alone in the dark._ ”

And then she slammed the axe blade into a transformer box on the wall, creating a burst of sparks that left spots in Kagami’s eyes. 

The announcer’s voice cut off. The windows to the theatre all went black. The roar of the crowd transitioned from excitement to fear. Lila dropped the axe and dashed into the night, cackling madly, and Kagami watched her go, transfixed momentarily by paralyzing horror.

Then, cursing in Japanese, she spun around and sprinted back towards the theatre entrance as fast as her bare feet could carry her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Cedalodon for feedback


	5. Chapter 5

The front hall of the theatre wasn’t pitch black. With the benefit of street lights shining in through the glass doors and green battery-powered exit signs that cast a sickly glow over the doorways, Kagami could have easily found her way once her eyes had adjusted to the dimness. 

The flashlight in her face precluded such adjustment. 

“Mademoiselle,” said a guard, the same one who had guided her to the camera room. “We need you to stay put until the generator kicks in--”

“I cannot,” she said, squinting against the too-bright light in her face. “My girlfriend is inside, I need to--”

“Mademoiselle, she’s perfectly safe--”

Kagami closed her eyes. The flashlight’s brilliance shone red through her eyelids. “Let me by,” she demanded. 

She heard him take a step towards her. “Mademoiselle…”

She dodged past him and split for the entryway. The rear entrances to backstage had been locked from the outside, so her only option was to go the long way around the auditorium. If Lila was right--if Hawk Moth had an akuma prepared to target Marinette--then Kagami didn’t have a second to lose. 

She glanced ahead to her destination once the flashlight was out of her view. Between her pinprick pupils and overexposed retinae, she could see only the vaguest ghosts of the path to the door, but she hurled herself in its general direction and made it through without crashing. 

Her eyes were immediately assaulted by a new brightness, this time from cell phones in the hands of panicked guests. She held an arm out to try to block out the light. One of the guests shoved her aside to leave.

“Please, the generator will restore power momentarily!” an usher cried, following after them. He stopped at Kagami’s side briefly, asking “Are you okay?” She nodded, and he went back to the theatre door to try to dissuade another group from fleeing. 

Eyes were a liability here. Fortunately, Kagami was no stranger to working without them.

She squeezed her eyelids shut and ran a hand against the wall, moving at a slow steady pace down the hallway. People were shouting in a repetitive manner, a dozen variations of “I’m getting out of here,” “please wait for the lights,” and she tried to zone it out. Marinette needed her. She needed to be there for Marinette. She could make it--

Then a heavy boot stomped on her bare foot, and she shouted. 

“Watch where you’re going, crazy bitch!” screamed a punk girl with a pink mohawk. Kagami got only the briefest of glances before cell-phone light went straight into her eyes, _again._

Tears welled up, not just of pain, but of defeat. Kagami had failed to stop Lila. She’d failed to keep her promise. She’d failed to return to Marinette, and now the girl was alone and vulnerable. 

Kagami closed her eyes. 

“One more time.” She breathed in through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. “You are Tsurugi. You are a Musketeer. You are Ryuuko. You are a warrior.” In, and out. “You drive through all obstacles. Nothing can stand against you.” In, and out. “And you are needed.”

She began to move once more. 

She walked slowly, at first. Her hand was against the wall, following it. But then she realized she could hear her footsteps echoing against it. Experimentally, she pulled her hand back and tried to discern the location of the wall from its sound. It worked. So, she started moving faster. 

Footsteps warned her that another gaggle of escapees was heading her way. There was nothing unusual about that. But their imminent presence was heralded by their body heat radiating against her skin, letting her slip past them by centimeters. _That_ was unusual. So too was the scent of the breath of another member of the theater staff, alerting Kagami to his location before he could shout for her to stop. 

What she was doing was impossible. Kagami knew this well. Blindness did not supernaturally heighten one’s other senses, and even highly trained ears and fingers could not substitute for eyes. 

And yet here she was, dodging down a darkened hall like the high noon sun illuminated her path. Was this _zanshin,_ the mystical state of universal awareness that her mother had described? The remote part of Kagami’s self that was watching her body move could remember what the swordmistress had said: that _zanshin_ was a natural outgrowth of skill at fencing. Was that what Kagami had awakened?

A sharp pain, like thumbtacks in the back of her eyes, dizzied her momentarily. The overload of sensory stimuli was taking a toll. Kagami could push past pain, she’d trained through more injuries than she could remember, but this unfamiliar and growing ache would incapacitate her before long. Whatever she was doing, it was unsustainable. She needed to hurry. 

A metallic echo warned her of an impending door, and she barreled through, rounding a corner to a hall that led to backstage and the band’s dressing rooms. Something instinctual told her to leap, and she leapt, her big toe scraping the top of an unseen barrier. She was at a full run now, hurdling unseen obstructions with ease. 

Then she was dizzied again by something completely new.

Nauseating feelings of _wrongness_ dispelled any doubt that she’d tapped into senses beyond normal human capability. Something was ahead of her. Something twisted and evil and malicious. Something flying towards the building on butterfly wings. 

She flicked her baton open again and charged forward at top speed, eyes screwed shut in defiance of the darkness. The hall was noisy, filled with the loud slaps of bare soles on tile and the mechanical whining of a disused backup generator struggling to resurrect. But the currents in the air, the smell of Marinette’s perfume and Luka’s cologne, led her unerringly to Kitty Section’s dressing room.

She was losing the race. 

She turned the last corner and skidded to a halt where her ear had pinpointed the sound of enraged sobs. When she kicked the door open, she could hear Marinette’s pulse, feel her tremors, smell her tears. However, all of those sensations were muted in the toxic miasma of the akuma hovering just above her head.

Tomoe Tsurugi had refused to teach Kagami anything about magic. She hadn’t even acknowledged its existence, in a misguided attempt to shield Kagami from the cursed blindness of the Tsurugi. But she’d let one thing, one tiny detail, slip. “As I’d previously learned to channel my spirit into every cut, I needed little effort to advance to the basic ghost-cutting strike,” she’d said to Ladybug. 

Kagami had learned that lesson, too. The spiritual aspect of swordsmanship had been a part of Kagami’s martial education from the first time she held a blade. She’d always taken it to be a metaphor, but she’d practiced it all the same.

_This is for Marinette,_ she thought, and the girl’s face flashed behind Kagami’s closed eyes for the split second it took for her to cross the distance to the akuma. _This is for Adrien and for Doo Ri and for mother. This is for all of Paris. This is for my pride as a swashbuckler and my honor as a warrior. Ladybug cannot be akumatized. Hawk Moth_ will not _win._

When her weapon struck the butterfly, it was like striking a crashing wave.

The evil of akumatization pushed back at her, nearly sweeping her off her feet. Her arms and her spirit both strained to fight back against the onrushing tide. The stabbing headache behind her closed eyes had crescendoed from tacks to nails to railroad spikes, and a mystic cacophony of evil swirled around her. 

She took a step backward, inevitably failing, because no mortal could stand in the face a Miraculous and its--

_No._ That was not how the story went. That was not how the tales of the old Tsurugi warriors ended.

Kagami Tsurugi stepped forward. 

“You cannot have her,” she growled through her teeth. Then she screamed it again. “You cannot have her!” With both hands on the hilt, she surged ahead. She poured every ounce of love and hope and determination that her spirit could muster into the steel in her hands. 

Her ears faintly detected the angry voice of Hawk Moth cursing her interference. The akuma’s wing’s fluttered, and one last blast of taint washed over Kagami. She stood firm. Then, the akuma’s defenses failed, and with a wordless shout, Kagami slashed through the miasma and sent the bug splattering against the far wall.

She collapsed to her hands and knees, swallowing spit-up. The world collapsed in on itself, her extrasensory perception fully expended. But before it failed completely, she sensed tendrils of darkness reaching for one another in a slow process of regeneration. 

“Kagami?” Marinette gasped from a corner of the room. “What… what just happened?”

Kagami opened her eyes. The dressing room was pitch black, not lit by so much as an exit. “Akuma,” she said. “I stunned it. It took everything I had, but I’ve bought us some time.” _Not very much time,_ she thought, _but enough. A warrior_ can _defend against a miraculous_. 

She’d savor her victory later. For now, there were things to do. Kagami crawled until her hands found a dresser, which she used to carefully stand. Her headache and dizziness were receding but hadn’t faded completely. “Can you reach your phone and turn on the flashlight?”

“My… flashlight?” Marinette asked. “Why…?”

The poor girl was in shock. “Never mind.” Kagami’s own cell phone sat with the rest of her belongings in the purse she’d abandoned in the back alley. Oh well. With the pressing danger in the past, and without fleeing audience members crowding her out, she could navigate by mundane means. Kagami started to feel her way around the room, finding the wall and then the corner and then the door frame. “We need to get out of here until lighting is restored. The butterfly will reform, and you might not be able to purify it in the dark.”

Marinette made a distraught cry of agony from the back of her throat.

“Marinette?” Kagami called out.

“Oh no.” Marinette’s breathing was coming in short gasps. Kagami could no longer pinpoint her exact location, but she could tell Marinette remained prone on the ground. “Oh God. Oh no. Kagami, what did you do? You stupid, stubborn hero, what did you _do_?”

Kagami held onto the doorframe and pondered the question. Had she broken some rule of the Miraculous? Had she damaged something, or risked another rogue akuma like Mister Mirror? 

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. “You are not akumatized. That’s what’s important. Anything else, we can deal with once we can both see. I’ve found the door. Follow the sound of my voice--”

Kagami heard Marinette scrambling to her feet. “Slowly!” Kagami shouted. Marinette ignored her, throwing herself across the cluttered room. Miraculously, Marinette didn’t trip in the darkness, and Kagami was soon engulfed in a tight embrace. Marinette’s flesh was warm, yet she quivered with fear, leaving Kagami chilled.

“Marinette,” Kagami said as calmly as she could. “I don’t know what I did wrong, but we can fix it, I promise. Let me guide you out. We’ll return when the generator activates and the lights come back on--”

“Kagami… _mon mousquetaire_ …” Marinette’s voice cracked, and her mourning echoed in the blackness that consumed Kagami’s vision.

“...the lights _are_ on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Cedalodon and Rikka for feedback and commentary on this chapter!
> 
> And, thanks to everyone for following and reading. We're approaching endgame, and the final section of this story, Looking Forward, will be posted in the near future. Make sure you're following the series, not just this fic, so you can get updates!
> 
> I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. For the record, this scene was the very first thing I envisioned with this story, before I even wrote Blind Days. Fingers crossed that I successfully translated the image in my head onto the page for all of you to see.


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